Smooth equals fast and smooth equals efficient, here is how to roll down a steep face smoothly!

Riding steeps and steep rolls is perhaps the most misunderstood skill in mountain biking. The LAST thing you want to do is start with your weight way back! No matter what anyone says, this is a scary position and unsafe position. You are starting at the end of your range of motion. With your weight back will be yanked down the steep roll and likely endo.

You want to do it smoothly and in balance, as I explain in the following video. For a more detailed break down please read and check out my photo sequence breakdown below after watching the video.

As you approach a roll in this position you will alter your position in relation to the height of the roll in. If the roll is equal in height or taller than the length of your arms you want hinge so you are practically brushing your chest on your handlebars and your knees are bent close to your chest.

MTB Rock Roll starting position

Then as your front wheel starts down the descent you will extend your arms at about the same rate the wheel is dropping away from you. As your rear wheel starts to descend you will straighten out your legs about the same rate as your rear wheel is descending.

Starting to extend arms

Fully Extended Arms at impact, knees bent (notice, I’m only in this position for a millisecond as my front wheel goes from steep to flat, never ride in this position! Use it then return to centered and neutral)

Back to flat as smooth as possible (looks at that rear tire, still a fair amount of impact but smooth enough not to flat with 18 psi)

Example: If the roll is the exact length of my arm extension I will start with my chest practically on the bars and finish extending my arms at almost the exact same time my front wheel is hitting the ground (same with my legs and rear wheel). On a roll the length of your arm extension or less your head and chest should not move at all as you do this. If the roll is taller than arm extension I will extend my arms a little slower than my front wheel is descending with the goal of reaching full arm extension at the same time my front wheel is hitting the ground, then do the same with my legs.

For a short roll or drop such as a curb simply stay hinged and gently push down with your arms as the front wheel drops then do the same with your legs as your rear wheel drops.

The bonus of this is that in addition to being safer and much smoother is also faster and more efficient!

Often, when it comes to being smooth and efficient we want to look at mountain biking as being a game of momentum. The better you can maintain your momentum the less effort you will need. Momentum likes slack angles, if you are coasting downhill into a steep uphill you will slow down quickly, if you coast into a mellow uphill you will maintain speed longer. The same with downhills, a steep downhill with a sudden transition to flat ground (a steep approach angle) will cause your momentum to slam into the ground, not propel you forward. A less steep downhill with a lesser approach angle will be smoother and not slow you as much as you transition from the hill to flat ground.

While in almost any body position the approach angle of our bike remains the same, we can greatly change the approach angle of our momentum. By simply starting hinged and low and extending your arms and legs as you descend your hips and upper body take a much slacker approach to the ground. This makes you smoother as you have less impact and allows you to carry more speed.

This is easy to test, find a short, steep descent or a set of stairs and roll down with weight way back, you feel a big impact when the rear wheel slams into the ground. Now repeat the same descent, starting at the same speed as before but this time get centered and low and extend your arms and legs as you go down. You will find it is much smoother (less impact) and you carry more speed after the descent.

Have you had trouble with steep rock rolls like this? Have a particularly challenging roll on your favorite trail? Tell us about it below.

Want to go up a wall like this? Check out my next 2-minute tip and breakdown!

If you know anyone who could benefit from this please feel free to share it.

All mountain bikers can learn a lot from Aaron Gwin’s winning run at Mont Sainte Anne this year. You don’t have to be into downhill mountain biking or even enjoy it to learn from this amazing run.

If you don’t know much about this incredible feat I will give you the backstory. (if you know the story or just want to cut to the chase skip down to below the video) In World Cup downhill racing to build drama, in the final run, the race order goes from slowest qualifier to the fastest qualifier (they have a qualifying “race” the day before the actual race and the 80 fastest racers “qualify” to race in the finals). This year in Mount Saint Anne Aaron Gwin needed to qualify and race well to stay in the overall points chase. He did just that, but it gets better!

After the first 60 racers (those who qualified 80th to 21st) race there is a 20 minute break to make sure the camera crews, live feed and live timing are working for the final 20 fastest qualifiers. Well, those first 60 racers at great track conditions, beautiful, sunny weather! During the break, it started raining and the rain kept getting harder. By the time the 20th qualifier started the track was a muddy mess. The first 10 or so racers after the break really struggled to get down safely, much less quickly.

Everyone thought the real race was pretty much over, the top qualifiers were not going to even finish in the top 10! Then, 9th place qualifier Jack Moir put down a pretty fast run despite the rain and mud giving us a little hope but it still seemed like a long shot. 3rd place qualifier and current World Cup points leader had a miserable run!

Loic Bruni, second place qualifier had a great run but was still two seconds behind the leader Dean Lucas who had raced in dry conditions. Aaron Gwin was the last man on the hill and it wasn’t looking good for him but, he didn’t seem to care. He stormed out of the start gate and attacked that track like it was dry! He took inside lines, looked smooth and relaxed and had one of the all-time great runs in the history of downhill mountain bike racing!

Lesson 1. Intention! Aaron decided to ride his best and give it is all! He was obviously focused the entire time and didn’t change his riding due to the weather, he rode the track as if it were dry!

Intention is everything! If you ride to not fall, like Greg Minnaar did your whole focus is on falling (“darn, remember the last time I fell, that hurt …”) and you are lacking confidence. (more on Greg’s big mistake and how you can learn from it here: http://betterride.net/blog/2017/greg-minnaars-big-mistake-last-world-cup-learn/ ) Turns out when you lack confidence your coordination drops considerably too! So always focus on what you want to do, not what you don’t want to! If all you can think about is not falling, that is a good time to get off your bike and walk that section! As you walk it try and figure what is scaring you and then “baby-step” your way up to doing it (find a similar but easier/safer feature or trail section become confident and work your way up)!

Always ride with a positive focus, “I want to get to the bottom of this trail as smoothly as possible”, “my goal is to keep my chin up and look ahead”, “I’m a billy goat!”, etc. I’m going to crush this steep, rocky climb!” Never ride with a negative focus, “I hope I make it”, “just don’t crash”. etc.

Lesson 2. Learn the ADVANCED mountain bike skills like looking ahead, good descending body position (staying in balance, hinged at the hips, weight on his pedals, in balance cornering technique and using his body as suspension). Wait! Those are all basic skills! Seriously, please watch the video and note when he does an advanced skill and comment below (“Gene, at 1:42 (or whatever time he does the “advanced skill”) into is run he does …., that is an advanced skill …). Other than a short “manual” over a ditch (which is still a basic skill) where are those advanced skills?

Aaron Gwin has mastered the basics! That is what all sports are about! Mastering the basics is the absolute key to reaching your potential as a mountain biker. I know Aaron can scrub jumps and probably do a few other advanced skills but he uses none of those in this race!

Now, I’m not saying you could beat Aaron Gwin if you mastered the basics, Aaron Gwin is also SUPER fit and has an incredible mental game too, both of which also contributed to this amazing run. However, imagine how well you could ride if you mastered the basics!

So, focus on DOING the basics, not simply knowing them! We all know to look ahead, but are you doing 100% of the time? Even on a trail as gnarly as that World Cup track?

Heres to creating your best year yet in 2018!

We love to hear your comments on this below and if you feel anyone you know could benefit from this article feel free to share it!

The bike world is abuzz with talk of Greg Minnaar’s big mistake in the last World Cup! He did something I and most riders have done but you wouldn’t expect it from one of the best MTB racers of all time!

His crash wasn’t his mistake, it was the cause of the crash that was his mistake! To bring you up to date, if you weren’t glued to your live feed on Saturday, Greg crashed and seriously hurt his chance of winning the World Cup Overall. Greg had a big points lead going into the race and with just two races left he was likely going to win the overall, now that is going to be a tough task.

So what did Greg do that caused his crash? The conditions were quite different for the final 25 qualifiers (of which Greg was the 3rd place qualifier) than for the first 55. With the wet, muddy conditions, poor visibility and a big points lead, Greg decided to take it easy and be safe! In other words his goal was to “not crash”! Which is the worst state anyone can ride in! Mountain biking is an offensive sport! You cannot mountain bike defensively, it will lead to disaster! Either ride with confidence or get off your bike and walk. Greg chose to ride defensively while is main competitors, Aaron Gwin, Danny Hart, Jack Moir, Troy Brosnan and Loic Bruni all attacked the track with confidence. Heck, despite the rain Aaron Gwin rode the best race of his life and took the win while Greg crashed and was disqualified.

In every camp I coach I tell my students that the safest way to fall is to not fall! Let me explain, our brains don’t like the words no, not and don’t. There is a real simple reason for this, if we think “don’t crash” we have to think about crashing! “Oh, that last crash hurt! Man, don’t want to do that again …”. It completely shifts our focus from confident to not confident. This in turn affects our coordination! We become much less coordinated and lose our “athletic posture”. Not a safe way to ride.

Not only do we want to be confident, we want to ride confidently at 90-100% of our ability level. At less than 90% we lose focus at 101% we are riding over our skill level and will likely crash. If you can’t ride that section of trail confidently, get off you bike and walk it. Then, if you want to one day ride that section of trail figure what scares you about it and what skills you need to improve so it will no longer be scary!

Why 90-100% of our ability level? That is where the “flow state” is! In his book Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says that to reach the “flow state” we need a challenge but a challenge within reach. So, too big a challenge (riding at 101% or above) we will not reach the flow state and probably freak out and we crash. Not enough challenge (riding at less than 90% of our skill level) and our mind tends to wander and we crash.

By “trying to take it easy” Greg wasn’t riding at his usual level of confidence and “taking it easy” allowed Greg to lose focus for a split second and his run was over!

It was sad to see my friend, student and coach make this mistake but it is a great reminder to be on the offense or get off and walk! Riding defensively never ends well (as does riding above our skill level, you can always get off and walk!)!

I hope you have learned from Greg’s mistake and enjoyed this article. Feel free to share it with anyone you feel may benefit from it. Have something to say or ask? Please comment below.

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https://betterride.net/wp-content/uploads/208.jpg12001800Genehttps://betterride.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/betterride-logo.pngGene2017-08-08 15:45:402017-08-08 15:45:40Greg Minnaar’s Big Mistake In the Last World Cup, Learn From It

This video deals with proper line choice while descending switchbacks. What you’ll see in the video is that it is very important to use the whole trail in order to put the bike in the correct spot (take the correct line) if you want to successfully descend tight switchbacks. This applies to all levels of riders. Very often I’ll see “good” riders run into problems on switchbacks simply because their initial line selection was off. Sometimes this is a result of being in a hurry: trying to go fast without being patient enough to slow down and do things right; sometimes riders get lazy (this often happens when fatigue sets in); but more often than not, most riders simply don’t understand the degree to which they need to get away from the main line, use the whole trail, and properly set up for an extremely sharp corner on a very steep (usually) section of trail.

Unfortunately, most riders are guilty of following the main line down the trail or the “people’s line” as I jokingly refer to it in camps. The main line is usually the path of least resistance, however, most of the time it is the path of least resistance ONLY for what is immediately in front of us on the trail. It isn’t formed by taking large chunks of trail, or what is further down the trail, into consideration. And, again unfortunately, this is how most riders see and ride the trail: looking for solutions for ten or twenty-foot sections of trail at a time instead of looking for solutions to sixty or even a hundred foot sections at a time. What’s important is the point where you want to end up on the trail and finding a solution to get there, hence, setting up with the proper line at the beginning of the switchback (in this case) in order to get to where you need to be at the end of the switchback. Also, proper line choice, as it is addressed in the video, obviously only works if it is possibly to get the bike to that particular part of the trail. If there is an obstacle in the way that is unridable then you have to look for a different solution/different line (usually deviating as little as possible from the optimum line). However, the way most trails are built and maintained these days (for better or worse), this line choice is almost always possible in switchbacks.

As I state in the video, proper line choice is just one part of descending switchbacks that has to be done correctly in order to have success out there on the trail. Switchbacks are tough and require a rider to do everything almost perfectly in order to get down them in one piece. We spend about an hour on this topic in our full instruction camps and cover body position, weight placement, vision, line choice, braking, etc… all the aspects of riding, how they relate to descending switchbacks, and how they need to be applied to ensure success on these difficult trail features. Obviously, we can’t give you that type/volume of information in a couple of minutes via the internet in a short video…

But, hope you do enjoy the video. Hope it helps you out… I’ll have plenty more so check back soon!